Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 5874Location: United States of New England

i have a funny story. we had family Xmas the other day. my parents bought each of my nephews (11 & 13) a Nintendo 3DS thingy. something they both really wanted. for reasons i dont understand even though they both got the same one, just the color was differernt, the boxes were different sizes.so my mom gave each kid a box and made a joke that they must love my younger nephew more because he got the bigger box. they opened them up. my older nephew is holding the nintendo 3DS and freaking out with joy and my younger nephews unwraps a 3D puzzle thing. she had accidently given him the wrong box but he didnt know and had this look of absolute horror on his face as he looked from his present to his brothers. it was absolutely HYSTERICAL.

it took the adults a good five minutes of laughing before we could calm down and find him the correct box.then we pretty much didnt see my nephews for the rest of hte day..........

We had toy overload followed by a crash over here. Vi's still sleeping....the coughing and dripping of snot didn't help, but while I think she's enjoyed it, taking her away for things like diaper changes results in a meltdown and streaking through the house.

We're actually saving a couple of things for her to open in a few days, and another box is supposedly arriving at some point from my MIL (containing alphabet blocks at least, though she already sent a rocking horse - V is terrified of it so far - and a stuffed noah's ark thing). We need a better way to spread it all out, or to stop overdoing it ourselves.

So far the biggest hits are the wooden brio subway train set and chicago el trains from my sister, a fisher price puppy thing that sings songs and interacts when you press parts of it from my parents, and the doll stroller - thanks for the tip on that everybody!!! the doll has not garnered as much attention, though! but she puts all her other new toys in the stroller and wheels them around the house like a bag lady.

On the big kid front, I had to keep my husband from having a tantrum when he turned on the Wii U and it did about 4 different (long) software updates and required some sort of stupid email confirmation and then was yakking on about coins earned in games and winning jukeboxes in the game and he was all I JUST WANT TO PLAY MARIO. Seriously, he turned the thing on and an hour later it still wouldn't let him play the game.

So far it's been nothing but joy in the poopie household. poopiebaby is a little tired because he has pretty much quit napping totally, so we've had some near-meltdown moments, but he has spent hours (hours!) playing with the train set Santa brought him. I call that a major success. We still have to drive out to my parents house in a bit, so hopefully seeing all the cousins will prevent any tantrums.

We celebrate with BG on the days either side of Christmas as he's with his Mum today. His grandparents were here and he always gets over-excited and wound up when they're around, so he had a bit of a meltdown yesterday but he was very happy and excited for the rest of the day.

We did fauxmas a few days ago with our one Christmas-celebrating relative who lives in the middle of nowhere. Malka and her cousin fought over their few presents and stole mine as well. We had to hide the stroller and baby doll for awhile because it was causing too much terror.

on the positive side my brother asked me for a hat with ears on it and fingerless gloves. i fretted over the hat and decided to go with a deadmaus hat and he said it was perfect. he also said he was going to wear the gloves out clubbing too.

Ours is good. We had a couple problems: the DS game that did not go over well and the iPod shuffle that was being frustrating. He was being pretty obnoxious about that gizmo, but he really loves it, and we figured it out, so all is well. We almost had a horrible time when the girl from next door <more on her below the spoiler tag> came over with her brand-new iPod Touch, which outclasses the shuffle like crazy. She came over to show it off, and we thought, "Here we go. The new toy is about to turn to crepe." But TRS was unimpressed. He said, "I can just put mine in my pocket and go anywhere." I was relieved and (even though this is pathetic of me) proud of him.

She and TRS have been friends for years. She's about a year and a half younger and is one of the weirdest kids I've ever known. Her parents send her to a Sudbury school, which means she is exposed to zero formal, deliberate education. Her school has no classes, no academic requirements or expectations, and very little structure of any kind. She is 8.5 or so and doesn't know how to read. But she has an iPod Touch and frequently watches movies by herself in her room. It's such a different way of raising (?) your kid. Mrs. Face and are I hardly the world's best parents, it's true, and TRS is far from perfect (!), and all parents have to find their own way and do what they think is best for their kids and their families. But, come on. TRS taught himself to read when he was around 4—and I understand that not all kids are motivated by the same things or have the same talents—but it seems to me like literacy and everything it brings are being denied to her.

The school won't intervene, because there's nothing for them to intervene about. They don't view learning to read as a universal milestone or inherently positive experience. She'll learn to read when she wants to? I guess? Or she'll seek help from the staff? Likewise any other skill or body of knowledge. She doesn't do math or know much of anything. I'm sure if you ask a proponent of the Sudbury method you'll hear a different argument from mine. From my uninformed perspective, it's a real disservice to all but the most motivated of kids. And a real waste of money besides.

A good day here, if overstimulating. Despite my best efforts way too many presents. Of the things we got him, I think Walter's favorite was the football (he inherited some very recessive jock gene), and then my sister gave him a giant foam alphabet floor puzzle. My mother got him a stuffed animal Grover (from Sesame Street) and he's been running around saying "HELLO (every)BODY!!!" in his best muppet voice. He was too excited to nap and I let him eat half a cupcake after dinner, so by 6pm he was a cranky mess. I'm grateful for all the new toys, though, because it will be snowing all week and we'll be stuck inside.

Things were pretty great here. Inez got a play kitchen from her aunt and lots of accessories for it from us and the grandparents and that was a HUGE hit. She has spent the whole day chopping fake vegetables and feeding her new toy horse salad. She is also wearing the big girl undies from her stocking over her pants (over a diaper) superhero style, per her insistence. At one point the outfit also included rain boots, a smock and a hat. She still has things to open because it was kind of a lot with everybody's presents, so we'll spread it out. And then it's her birthday in three weeks. Blah. When it rains it pours!

She just fell asleep. Hopefully the late nap doesn't mean she's up until 11:00 like it did yesterday. I am pooped.

Last edited by Pinko on Tue Dec 25, 2012 8:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Here it was so peaceful. For the most part... the 19 year old has some frustrations that he is taking out on us, but that have nothing to do with the day. I am always so grateful that my kids are so grateful. We did a homemade (mostly) Christmas here and not a peep of anything negative. Not even about the presents that didn't get finished. And now the short one is making Lego Avengers out of her regular Legos.

Presents have sort of been trickling in over here between Hannukah and Christmas. We gave her a couple of things today (toy cars, a subway train, and a book) and she got stickers and one of those big reusable stickers books for Hannukah from us. So far the biggest hit has been the wooden train set that she got over the weekend from one of my brothers. Also this plastic, pink, noisy Minnie Mouse vacuum from my sister-in-law. It's awful but she loves it. Every time she makes a mess with food on the floor she goes and gets this vacuum and tries to clean it up. Too bad it doesn't actually pick stuff up! We still have two sets of grandparents to visit next weekend and they are really into buying lots of presents so we'll see how much they stuck to the lists that they asked for.Today my husband's brother said that we should be getting a package this week for Ada. It's a hot wheels sort of motorized vehicle. Seriously. We live in the city. In a small apartment. Oi.

This Sudbury stuff doesn't sound workable for all but a tiny fraction of people...but the author of this article is really being kind of a wad of forks. I'm sorry, I don't think that having a OMG Federal! Government! Job! or running a coffee shop is the worst thing ever. I also don't think that starting your own business (as long as it's not a coffee shop I guess) is the end-all-be-all to happiness. My husband works for the federal government, horror of horrors, and I'm proud of him and what he does.

The Emperor had a great day. He was super patient about waiting for the whole family to be assembled and ready for presents around 11 am, despite the fact that he woke up at 6 ready to go. He was amazingly patient about his brother grabbing at his new things etc. He remembered to say thank you for his presents without any prompting from me. And he seemed to genuinely love everything he got. (This year hit a good note of not too many things, but all really good things.)

The stimulation was kind of a lot for the Magician who stayed up all day long aside from a twenty minute nap. Seriously. He was in a great mood but still, that was a little rough.

Ours is good. We had a couple problems: the DS game that did not go over well

Aw. Is that the one you asked about? What did you give him?

Yep. I got him a Professor Layton game. I looked them up before buying and liked what I saw. The game looked like a lot of fun to me, but he wasn't feeling it. And he didn't like that the puzzles didn't come with obvious instructions.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 5874Location: United States of New England

Pinko wrote:

Things were pretty great here. Inez got a play kitchen from her aunt and lots of accessories for it from us and the grandparents and that was a HUGE hit. She has spent the whole day chopping fake vegetables and feeding her new toy horse salad. She is also wearing the big girl undies from her stocking over her pants (over a diaper) superhero style, per her insistence. At one point the outfit also included rain boots, a smock and a hat. She still has things to open because it was kind of a lot with everybody's presents, so we'll spread it out. And then it's her birthday in three weeks. Blah. When it rains it pours!

She just fell asleep. Hopefully the late nap doesn't mean she's up until 11:00 like it did yesterday. I am pooped.